To report suspected abuse, neglect, or financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult, call Tennessee’s Adult Protective Services hotline at 1-888-277-8366 or file online at OneDHS.tn.gov/csp. The hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and online reports do not require a login.1Tennessee Department of Human Services. Adult Protective Services Adult Protective Services in Knoxville operates through the Tennessee Department of Human Services and investigates reports involving adults who cannot protect themselves because of a physical or mental limitation. If someone’s life is in immediate danger, call 911 first.
Who APS Can Help
Tennessee law defines a protected adult as someone 18 or older who, because of a mental or physical impairment or advanced age, cannot manage their own resources, carry out daily living activities, or protect themselves from danger without help.2Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-102 – Part Definitions One more condition applies: no willing and able person must already be providing that help. An adult with a severe disability who has an engaged caregiver stepping in may not meet the threshold.
You do not need a formal diagnosis or a court order of incapacity before calling. The statute specifies that an adult who is mentally impaired but still legally competent still counts for APS purposes.2Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-102 – Part Definitions If the condition makes daily life unmanageable and nobody else is stepping in, that is enough to report.
What APS Investigates
Four kinds of situations fall under the Tennessee Adult Protection Act.
Abuse or neglect by a caretaker covers inflicting physical pain, injury, or mental anguish; depriving the adult of services necessary to maintain health; or creating conditions where the adult cannot obtain those services alone. Abandonment counts too, meaning a caretaker who transports an adult somewhere and leaves without arranging further care, knowing the person cannot fend for themselves.2Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-102 – Part Definitions
Sexual abuse applies when an adult is forced, tricked, threatened, or coerced into sexual activity or exposure to sexually explicit material, or when someone engages in sexual contact with an adult who cannot give consent.2Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-102 – Part Definitions
Financial exploitation under the Adult Protection Act means a caretaker improperly using funds that a government agency paid to the adult or to the caretaker on the adult’s behalf.2Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-102 – Part Definitions A separate Tennessee statute, the Elderly and Vulnerable Adult Financial Exploitation Prevention Act, extends this to any unlawful use of an elderly or vulnerable adult’s property for someone else’s benefit, even without the adult’s knowledge.3Tennessee Department of Financial Institutions. Elderly and Vulnerable Adult Financial Exploitation Scams through phone, email, and social media that drain a vulnerable adult’s accounts fit here.
Self-neglect is its own category. It applies when an adult’s own physical or cognitive impairment leaves them unable to obtain or provide the services, including medical care, needed for their health.2Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-102 – Part Definitions Hoarding, refusing essential medical treatment, and living in hazardous conditions due to cognitive decline all qualify. No outside abuser needs to be involved.
What to Include When You Call
The legal standard is “reasonable cause to suspect,” not certainty.4Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-103 – Rules and Regulations – Reports of Abuse or Neglect Gathering evidence is the investigator’s job. Share whatever you know of the following:
- Name and address of the adult and of anyone responsible for their care
- Age of the adult
- Nature and extent of the suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation, including any evidence of past incidents
- Identity of the suspected perpetrator, if known
- Your own identity, though anonymous reports are accepted
- Anything else that might help investigators understand the situation
File even if you can only answer a few of those. Incomplete information beats no report, and the caseworker will fill the rest in. Online submissions through OneDHS.tn.gov/csp come back with a reference number you can use to check status.1Tennessee Department of Human Services. Adult Protective Services
Are You Required to Report?
Yes. Tennessee makes every resident a mandatory reporter.5Tennessee Department of Disability and Aging. Elder Abuse Anyone with reasonable cause to suspect that an adult has been abused, neglected, or exploited must report it. The statute names physicians, nurses, social workers, medical examiners, care facility employees, and caretakers as examples, but the duty reaches everyone. It applies even if the adult has died, in which case the circumstances surrounding the death must be reported.4Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-103 – Rules and Regulations – Reports of Abuse or Neglect
Knowingly failing to report is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to nearly 12 months in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.6Tennessee Department of Financial Institutions. Tennessee Code – Adult Protection Act Knowingly filing a false accusation is also a Class A misdemeanor.7Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-123 – Reporting False Accusations
Your Protections as a Reporter
Anyone who reports or investigates in good faith has full civil and criminal immunity, including in any judicial proceedings that follow. Good faith is presumed.8Tennessee Department of Human Services. Tennessee Statutes – Adult Protection Act, Section 71-6-105 Your identity is confidential and cannot be revealed except by court order for good cause or as part of administering the Adult Protection Act. Unlawfully disclosing a reporter’s identity is itself a Class B misdemeanor.9Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-118 – Confidentiality
What Happens After You Report
The Department of Human Services must notify law enforcement whenever a report involves abuse, neglect, or exploitation by another person. If the adult lives in or receives services from a licensed facility, the licensing authority is notified too. APS then opens an investigation and assigns a caseworker, who conducts face-to-face interviews with the adult and may also speak with medical staff, police, and others involved. The caseworker produces a written report of initial findings and a recommendation, and the department notifies the original reporter of the outcome.4Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-103 – Rules and Regulations – Reports of Abuse or Neglect
There is one outcome that often catches reporters off guard. If APS determines protective services are needed and the adult agrees to accept them, the department provides those services and a caretaker cannot interfere. But if the adult refuses or later withdraws consent, APS must stop, unless the department determines the adult lacks the mental capacity to make that decision and goes to court for authorization to serve the adult over their objection.4Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-103 – Rules and Regulations – Reports of Abuse or Neglect A competent adult who is being exploited can legally decline help, and APS has to respect that.
Emergency Court Orders
When a vulnerable adult faces imminent danger and lacks capacity to consent, the department can petition a circuit or chancery court (or a general sessions judge if no circuit or chancery judge is available) for an emergency order authorizing protective services. The court must find that the adult will suffer irreparable physical or mental harm, or die, without intervention. The adult and their spouse, if known and available, must receive the complaint at least 48 hours before the hearing and have the right to counsel, appointed if the adult is indigent. A full hearing on the merits must occur within seven days, extendable to 15 for good cause; if no hearing happens in that window, the order dissolves automatically.10Justia Law. Tennessee Code 71-6-107 – Provision of Protective Services
Other Knoxville Resources
Knox County residents also have access to the East Tennessee Human Resource Agency’s Area Agency on Aging and Disability, which serves Knox County and 15 surrounding counties. The agency administers home-delivered meals, homemaker services, personal care, legal services, ombudsman advocacy for people in care facilities, limited transportation, and public guardianship for adults over 60 and for people with disabilities aged 18 and older.11ETHRA. Area Agency on Aging and Disability The Knoxville office is at 9111 Cross Park Drive, Suite D-100, Knoxville, TN 37923, reachable at (865) 691-2551 or toll-free at 1-866-836-6678.
The Knox County District Attorney’s Office treats elder abuse as a priority area and offers its own reporting information.12Knox County District Attorney’s Office. Tennessee is Talking About Elder Abuse APS is already required to loop in law enforcement when a report involves another person causing the harm, but filing a police report directly can move things faster when the situation feels urgent.